David cox linkedin
- •
David Cox (artist)
English landscape painter (1783–1859)
David Cox (29 April 1783 – 7 June 1859) was an English landscape painter, one of the most important members of the Birmingham School of landscape artists[1] and an early precursor of Impressionism.[2]
He is considered one of the greatest English landscape painters, and a major figure of the Golden age of English watercolour.[3]
Although most popularly known for his works in watercolour, he also painted over 300 works in oil towards the end of his career, now considered "one of the greatest, but least recognised, achievements of any British painter."[5]
His son, known as David Cox the Younger (1809–1885), was also a successful artist.
Early life in Birmingham, 1783–1804
Cox was born on 29 April 1783 on Heath Mill Lane in Deritend, then an industrial suburb of Birmingham. His father was a blacksmith and whitesmith about whom little is known, except that he supplied components such as bayonets and barrels to the Birmingham gun trade. Cox's mother was the daught
- •
Do you know someone who would love this resource?
Tell them about it...
(b Birmingham, 29 Apr. 1783; d Harborne, 7 June 1859). English landscape painter, mainly in watercolour. In his youth he worked as a scene painter in Birmingham, then in 1804 moved to London, where he took up watercolour, receiving lessons from John Varley. He lived in Hereford, 1814–27, and in London, 1827–41, before retiring to Harborne, near Birmingham (it is now a suburb of the city), from where he made annual sketching tours to the Welsh mountains. In spite of a certain anecdotal homeliness, his style was broad and vigorous, and in 1836 he began to paint on a rough Scottish wrapping paper that was particularly suited to it. A similar paper was made commercially and marketed as ‘Cox Paper’. Cox devoted much of his time to teaching and he wrote several instructional books on watercolour; in the last two decades of his life he also worked a good deal in oils.
His son, David Cox the Younger (1809–85), was also a landscape watercolourist.
Text source: The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (O
- •
David Cox
Cox was born at Deritend, near Birmingham, the son of blacksmith. In around 1798, aged fifteen, he was apprenticed to a miniature painter named Fieldler. Following Fieldler's suicide, Cox was apprenticed around 1800 as assistant to a theatre scene-painter named De Maria. In 1804 he took work as a scene-painter with Astley's Theatre and moved to London. By 1808 he had abandoned scene-painting, taking water-colour lessons with John Varley. In 1805 he made the first of his many trips to Wales, with Charles Barber; his earliest dated watercolours are from this year. Throughout his lifetime he made numerous sketching tours to the home counties, North Wales, Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Devon.
Cox exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1805. His pictures never sold for high prices, and his earned his living chiefly as a drawing-master. Through his first pupil, Col. the Hon. H. Windsor (the future Earl of Plymouth), who engaged him in 1808, Cox acquired several other aristocratic pupils. He wrote several books, including Ackermann's New Drawing Book (1809); A Series of
Copyright ©icythaw.pages.dev 2025